Reed Intermediate School students and teachers participated on December 6 in what has become an annual effort to support the community through activities and crafts. Students in different clusters throughout the Day of Service worked on a range of projects.

Fifth grade students in Jacqueline McMahon and Rich Neeb's cluster painted Hearts of Hope that will be distributed through that group's Newtown chapter. Throughout the cluster's two rooms, students were diligently working to create inspired images on their Hearts of Hope, like student Emily Godbout who painted a heart with a pink ribbon on it in honor of a family member. Ms McMahon explained the hearts will be sent to support people in need of hope, as a "way to give back."

In Carrie Usher and Stacey Coehlo's fifth grade cluster, students painted Kindness Coins that will be distributed through the local Ben's Bells chapter. According to its website, bensbells.org, the Ben's Bells mission is "to inspire, educate, and motivate people to realize the impact of intentional kindness, and to empower individuals to act according to that awareness, thereby strengthening ourselves, our relationships and our communities."

Fifth graders in Carla Tischio and Peter Bernson's cluster and in Jonathan Hull and Dina Mastroni's cluster worked to create self-portraits that will garner Bezos Family Foundation funding for Students Rebuild programs that will support youth, according to Ms Mastroni. Ms Tischio learned about the program through her work with Ben's Lighthouse. According to the program's website, studentsrebuild.org, the Bezos Family Foundation donates money for each self-portrait created to support programs run by CARE and Search for Common Ground. The Reed self-portraits will support programs in Nigeria, Sri Lanka, and the South Caucasus region. Students in both clusters began their self-portraits by creating an outline of a profile. They then sketched different objects to represent their personalities and filled the outlines in with colorful images of the items. Fifth grader Gus Osier said his favorite part of the project was drawing a dragon in his self-portrait. Student Eren Weiss filled her self-portrait with images of things like a dog, a penguin, flowers, and a soccer ball.

Two sixth grade clusters - Petrice DiVanno and Matt Dalton's cluster and Matt Brown and Carol Wexler's cluster - also teamed up to work to make felt scarves that will be donated to local homeless shelters. Both clusters also raised money to buy socks and hand warmers that will also be donated to shelters. Students made cards with kind words and sayings on them that will be added to bags with the other donations. Each person who receives a bag will get a scarf, a pair of socks, and hand warmers.

Sixth grade students in Michelle Vaccaro and Courtney Palochick's cluster painted rocks with kind sayings on them that will be distributed on trails near the school for residents to find. The students also created and decorated placemats for Danbury's Dorothy Day Hospitality House.

Other efforts completed at the school for the Day of Service included fifth graders in Lara Brown and Induk Song's cluster, who decorated cardboard coffee cup sleeves with kind images and words. The sleeves will be used at school events, and some may be distributed around town for use at local coffee shops.